Monday's Overreactions: Kentucky is bad, Kansas is fine, Collin Gillespie for MVP?
It was a weird week in college basketball. Let's overreact to it all.
As of this very moment, the Kansas Jayhawks are sitting at 4-1 overall with the one loss coming to the nation’s No. 1 overall team, which is where most rational people would have had this team five games into the 2020-21 season.
But simply referring to Kansas as “4-1” ignores what we’ve seen on the floor in the last week.
On Sunday, the Jayhawks trailed 0-4 North Dakota State by nine points in the second half and needed to get two stops in the final minute of a one possession game to secure the win. They didn’t look all that much better against Kentucky in the Champions Classic, having to erase a 12-point deficit to beat a team that has lost to both Richmond and Georgia Tech by double-figures.
And after going through the film, I don’t think Kansas is really all that far away from getting this thing figured out.
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The issue, to me, comes on the offensive end. Part of their problem is Bill Self’s insistence on playing David McCormack at the five. I’m not going to hammer the kid, but there are little things — like not sealing off Olivier Sarr here — that the big fella just doesn’t do well right now. It’s not a coincidence that, when he’s off the floor, the Kansas offense looks like this.
Now, I know that Agbaji missed that shot, but that’s a wide-open corner three. Every coach in the country would take that shot a dozen times a game.
With McCormack off the floor, Jalen Wilson looks like he’s taken over the small-ball five role, and he’s done well. The 21 points he scored in the second half of the Kentucky game blew it open, and it is not humanly possible for him (or Marcus Garrett) to continue missing shots at the rim the way they’ve missed shots at the rim. If it is, then my point here is moot.
I also like what I’ve seen from Tyon Grant-Foster, and more minutes for Tristan Enaruna is a good thing.
So that’s the main reason I’m buying Kansas long-term.
But there is more to it than just moving to an offense that is more centered around small-ball.
The biggest issue that Kansas has on the offensive end of the floor is their decision-making. They’re not making the right reads. They’re missing open teammates and turning down open shots.
Let’s roll through some examples, shall we?
Here, Christian Braun is coming off of a ball-screen. The pocket-pass to Jalen Wilson is there for an open three, but Braun takes an extra dribble, allowing his defender to make up the ground and force Braun to make a bad pass. No open jumper.
In this clip, you’ll see Marcus Garrett use a ball-screen and a nifty behind-the-back dribble to get a paint touch, but instead of hitting Ochai Agbaji for a three in the corner, he tries to score over a 6-foot-10 defender and gets his shit sent.
And here, with just three minutes left in a game Kansas trails by three, Garrett again misses an open Agbaji when he does not read who is tagging the roll-man.
Mistakes like this are fixable. Remember, Kansas only has one natural point guard on the roster in DaJuan Harris, and even he misses reads and makes wrong decisions. Marcus Garrett is a good passer, but being a good passer and a full-time starting point guard tasked with making these plays dozens of times every game are two different things.
I think he can get where he needs to be, and if he does, those Kansas small-ball lineups get really, really interesting.
MONDAY’S OVERREACTIONS
It was a slow week, I spent a lot of time on that Kansas video and I already wrote a column on the Baylor-Gonzaga cancellation.
So this portion of this week’s programming will be brief.
1. KENTUCKY SHOULD NOT GIVE UP ON THE SEASON YET
I’m not going to justify the way this season has started for the Wildcats.
I’m not going to spend any time in this space breaking down the film.
I’m certainly not going to sit here and tell Kentucky fans that everything is OK right now.
I am, however, going to make three points:
Kentucky’s best teams under John Calipari have been the teams that have a level of balance between the freshmen superstuds and the upperclassmen role players. They win when Anthony Davis is on the floor with Darius Miller, or when Willie Cauley-Stein shares a frontcourt with Karl-Anthony Towns. This team has old guys, but not a single healthy player on this roster played for Kentucky last season.
The issues with youth and a new roster are getting exacerbated by the fact that this group did not get a summer to workout together. They did not get an offseason to get to know each as people or as players. They did not get a bunch of buy games that would let them figure out rotations and roles against lesser competition. There’s a reason the teams that have looked the best through the first two weeks of the season are the ones that are loaded with returning players.
The position that is the biggest concern is the point, where Devin Askew isn’t ready and Davion Mintz isn’t the answer. When your roster is this young and this new, not having a floor general is a nightmare scenario.
The talent is there for this Kentucky team. I believe in what they can be defensively, and I do believe there is a path to them becoming a top ten team down the road.
But right now, there is simply no other way to put it: This is a bad basketball team.
2. COLLIN GILLESPIE IS VILLANOVA’S MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
He’s not their best player, mind you.
He’s their most valuable, and their most influential.
Let’s start with the offensive side of the ball. As anyone that watched Villanova’s win at Texas on Sunday will attest, the offense just looks different with Gillespie out there. That’s because there is no backup point guard on this roster. Justin Moore, Caleb Daniels, those guys are quintessential Villanova guard in that they can do everything on a basketball court, but they are not point guards.
I think that is more or less self-explanatory at this point.
But the other side of things here is on the defensive side of the ball.
The flaw for Villanova right now has been their inability to stifle the penetration of opposing backcourts. Now, this isn’t entirely on Gillespie due to how much Villanova will switch defensively, but he is the guy that defends at the point of attack most often.
Villanova will go as far as Gillespie will take them.
And, to be clear, I still think that is going to be quite far.
3. WE NEED TO START TALKING ABOUT HOUSTON AS A REAL FINAL FOUR THREAT
The Cougars, on Saturday, played without Caleb Mills, Marcus Sasser, Kelvin Sampson and Kellen Sampson and still managed to cover 9.5 points against South Carolina.
That’s really impressive.
Houston’s guards are elite. In addition to Mills and Sasser, they have Kansas cast-off Quentin Grimes, senior DeJon Jarreau and freshman Tramon Marks. Their frontcourt tends to be a revolving door of bodies, but this is a group that is one of the best defensive and best rebounding teams year over year.
If you’re giving me one of the best coaches in the country on a team that can defend, can rebound and has great guard play, I’m buying them longterm.